Sacked Shell EP Boss Walter van de Vijver sacked again

Walter van de Vijver (middle) was forced to quit Shell in 2004, together with former chairman Philip Watts (left), and CFO Judy Boynton (right) in a huge scandal that resulted from Shell’s downgrading of its proven oil and gas reserves. Van de Vijver was a Royal Dutch Shell Group Managing Director and head of the Exploration & Production division.

False information signed by these and other senior Royal Dutch Shell executives had been filed with the US Securities & Exchange Commission, who later described the affair as a securities fraud.

The downgrade stunned financial markets, costing the group its top grade credit rating. The fraud led to $150 million in regulatory fines plus an estimated $700 million in legal costs and class action settlements. As a further consequence, Shell Transport & Trading Company Plc and Royal Dutch Petroleum Company were forced to merge, creating Royal Dutch Shell Plc out of the ashes. As a result of gross negligence at Shell during the setting up of the new company, we managed to grab its dotcom domain name (but that’s another story).

Van de Vijver returned to the oil and gas industry in 2007 after raising about $1 billion of private equity to form a new company, Delta Hydrocarbons. He founded the venture with Maarten Scholten, formerly head of Schlumberger’s mergers and acquisitions team. They were joined by Jeri Eagan, formerly chief financial officer for Shell’s gas and power business and Frederik Rijkens, previously a Total project director.

Following an internal row, Van de Vijver has been forced to leave the company.

This from the Delta Hydrocarbons website…

SEPT 22, 2009

As a result of a disagreement with shareholders about the Company’s future strategy, Walter van de Vijver and Maarten Scholten, founding executives of Delta Hydrocarbons, have resigned.

It is another public humiliation for Van de Vijver following his sadistic sacking from Shell.

In a press statement issued by Shell on 3rd March 2004 following activist shareholder outcry over the reserves fraud, Shell claimed:

“Mr Walter van de Vijver has stepped down from the Board of Management of Royal Dutch Petroleum Company and as a Group Managing Director, by mutual consent. Mr van de Vijver’s duties as Chief Executive of Shell’s Exploration and Production business will be assumed by Mr Brinded…”

This was a classic example of spin (deception). We can now read the dramatic and emotional account by van de Vijver of how in fact he was brutally pressurised into resigning. His deposition in a subsequent class action lawsuit brought by Shell stock holders is accessible below, courtesy of royaldutchshellplc.com.

A number of Shell notables were involved in the concerted plot to push van de Vijver over the edge (apparently including Shell executive director Jeroen van der Veer who had also signed false FORM 20F SEC Declarations). Basically it seems that there was a queue of Shell directors waiting to enter his office every 30 minutes ready and eager to knife him. He resigned as a result of the cumulative assault, shocked, humiliated and disgusted at the shabby inhuman treatment he received from his colleagues.

This is his own remarkable account of the way he was hounded out of the company after decades of loyal service to Shell in a job he loved. The questions were put to van de Vijver by attorneys during his deposition held in Washington D.C. in January 2007. The answers were all from van de Vijver.

EXTRACT FROM THE DEPOSITION OF WALTER VAN DE VIJVER

Q. When you say “sudden exit,” I take it you weren’t expecting to leave Shell at that time; is that correct?

A. It was the biggest shock in my life, totally unexpected.

Q. Why was it a big shock?

A. I, I thought at that stage, having been the driving force around this whole issue of getting clarity around reserves, I thought I would get a reward for it rather than getting something happen to me like that.

Q. Why don’t you take us a little bit through what had happened. How did you — how was it broken to you that you were being terminated from Shell?

A. I was — I was just sitting in my office on a Wednesday when we had a regular board meeting, a conference. I was preparing my material for that, for that meeting, which included the close-out of the previous year, et cetera, and suddenly two of the board members, Aad Jacobs, who was the Chairman, Royal Dutch, and Lord Oxburgh, entered my office and asked to talk to me.

Q. And was this on March 3rd?

A. Yes.

Q. Now, was this meeting with Lord Oxburgh and Aad Jakob scheduled?

A. No. Totallyout of nowhere.

Q. So what did they say to you when they entered your office?

A. They told me that they had lost confidence in me and that they basically wanted me to leave, resign.

Q. Did they explain why they had lost confidence in you?

A. No.

Q. What did you say in response?

A. I was just totally — I mean I just brokedown. I was just totally and utterly shocked.

Q. How long did the meeting last?

A. Maybe two minutes.

Q. So they just came in, said —

A. Delivered the message, and they said they would come back, because they, they wanted me to sign a paper.

Q. Did they say what paper they wanted you to sign?

A. Well, that I would resign, that I would leave, because they wanted to issue a press release that day at 11:00 or something like that.

Q. Did they come back with a Letter of Resignation?

A. Yes. I mean when that happened, the first I did was, uh, was call my wife, and she, she immediately came to the office. I was in a pretty bad state then. I was just so deeply shocked. I, I then — did I contact John directly? Because I basically was just so shocked, and, uh, and thereafter indeed some of the other board members and people would come in trying to basically get me to, to sign that note and leave the office as quickly as possible. So people like, like Ricciardi came in. I think John Hofmeister came in. I think Jeroen van der Veer came in. It was just all trying to put pressure on me to, to sign the, the letter and to then pack and leave.

Q. Who is Mr. Ricciardi?

A. He is one of the board members.

Q. And who is John Hofmeister?

A. The head of HR, Human Resources in Shell.

Q. And Jeroen van der Veer is the same person you identified earlier?

A. Yes.

Q. How would you describe your relationship with Mr. Hofmeister?

A. Cool.

Q. Why is that?

A. It — I always tried to keep him at a distance. I did not have full confidence in him.

Q. Why didn’t you have full confidence in him?

A. I always felt when, when, when I was in his surrounding, that he somehow was trying to, to manipulate events and influence outcomes.

Q. Are there any particular instances that you can recall?

A. Often it had to do with, with people. I mean clearly, as HR person, he was trying to influence my thinking about, judgment about people or wanting to sort of help me scheming things I had, and I always sort of wanted to have my own judgment, and I never quite felt very comfortable with —

Q. And you’re referring now with regard to personnel within your organization, the EP organization?

A. Yeah.

Q. When — did the three gentlemen that you identified — Ricciardi, Hofmeister and van der Veer — did they come together to your office or separately?

A. Separately. They sort of had, I guess, sort of an agreed process of every half hour to check in to me to make sure that I was making progress in, in signing the letter.

Q. Did you sign the letter?

A. Yes. You can imagine at that time I was just so shocked and so deeply, deeply insulted, that — what can you do?

Q. Were there people within Shell who you believed should have been terminated?

A. That’s not for me to judge.

Q. Well, with regard to the, the whole reserves issue that we’re here for today, at the time did you feel that there were people who were responsible who should have been terminated?

A. Yes.

Q. Who?

A. Phil Watts and Judy Boynton.

Q. Why did you feel that way about Mr. Watts?

A. I, I had the feel that, that clearly with, with a lot of things I was dealing with, were things that were from the time that he was, uh, was running E&P.

SHELL BLOG

Comments

Bogus Group: I concur with Bonus's comment's. Unfortunately these "turkeys' can't comprehend their deficiencies and actualy believe they are something special. A throwback of the rampant deviant executive culture at the time, which fostered them.

Bonus Group: Christmas is coming,
The goose is getting fat,
Please, put a penny in the ex BG employee's hat!
Rumour has it that the turkeys in the Brasil Asset, having contributed little to nothing to the asset over the past year, are now rubbing their hands with glee in anticipation of their annual bonuses. Hopefully, there will be another round of cost cutting in the New Year and they will be out on the street!

Insider: I am not sure I want to know which one of our leaders is a child sex offender. I would like to know if management hired the guy aware of his past history?

TABOO: Is this another sensitive subject where we can we expect a memo from Donny Ching warning us not to discuss it with colleagues?

"Equal opportunity means that all people will be treated equally or similarly and not disadvantaged by prejudices or bias. This means that the best person for a job or a promotion is the person who earns that position based on qualifications, experience and knowledge. Workplace diversity values everyone's differences."

Apparently, with Shell HR this applies even if convicted of aggravated child sex offences on multiple counts with an appearance on the Sex Offenders Register.

It does make the workplace uncomfortable for everyone who has contact with him. On the other hand, he has to work somewhere or otherwise conviction would amount to a life sentence for repellent acts carried out 14 years ago.

Is it a praiseworthy policy or an act of folly to hire and promote such individuals? Or an act of negligence if HR pleads ignorance of his past criminal history? The latter seems unlikely bearing in mind that his past is common knowledge among colleagues and apparently, even suppliers.

John Donovan: RECEIVED FROM A SHELL INSIDER SOURCE

"INTEGRITY OF LEADERSHIP" ...as a Shell staff member, I am always concerned about the integrity of the leadership team at any level. ...there is a recently promoted individual in a key leadership role. Staff are not happy working for this person as he is a registered sex offender since 2004 for aggravated sexual assault against a child. xxxxxxx website has his full profile including yearly pictures. All verifiable in the public domain. ...but for some reason management are turning a blind eye. It says a lot for the company! His conviction lists his full name as.............. You can confirm the Shell link via xxx. He works for Shell xxxxxx. Staff are appalled that he has now promoted in a key leadership role working with suppliers like xxxxxxx to improve the quality of services provided to Shell. Some suppliers are now also beginning to learn his history and quietly voicing surprise." (Some of the above information has been redacted by John Donovan. The name of the relevant individual in a Shell leadership role has been verified from court records and social media)

Bonus Group: Exshellman speaks of 'The BG merger for many was a final nail in the coffin, some of the hand picked people for the new club don't know their arse from their elbows.' This could not be more appropriate than for the Brasil Asset which is probably currently plotting its next fraud against Petrobras. These miscreants should be flushed out of the system, but are probably biding their time and counting their share options waiting for them to vest, and also waiting for their next bonus to be announced before considering jumping ship. They make little to no valid contribution to the Asset. Let's hope that their commutes are long and arduous, though most of them have probably weaselled a 'working from home' option, from where they do little work and can make endless cappuccinos at the shareholders expense!

Bonus Group: That well known Schlumberger ex-Chief with 'operations experience', Andrew Gould (Mr Corridor having seen fit to distance himself from the BG Group debacle) is now in the news as Chairman of a Houston based outfit called Sentinel, a blank-check company . The latter having struck lucky with a pipeline company called Strike in a $854MM deal. “If I take all my experience in the oilfield, I don’t think I see any other service segment which has been so outsourced as this one,” said Gould. Strike’s main focus will remain pipeline maintenance.
The deal comes less than a year after Sentinel raised $345 million in an initial public offering. The company, which up until now had no assets, was set up as a so-called special-purpose acquisition company, or SPAC.
Gould is returning to public life after helping orchestrate the sale of the failed BG Group to Shell for $54 billion in 2016. Let's hope that there is a knighthood in it for him!

Bogus Group: The release of the Shell Brent PSMR is shocking testimony of the culture these pathetic incompetents administered without challenge. When Shell was generating huge revenue for the treasury, the regulator, even government ministers had their heads in the sand and a lack of accountability meant they could move on to spread their malignance. Finlayson took his “talents” to BG, another company ruined by pathetic incompetents with the same DNA.

Brinded joined Network Rail who appointed Mark Carne, another Shell/BG stray, described in one tabloid as the “bungling rail chief”. It’s ironic he now talks about (Rail Engineer 27.09.18) joining from Shell “part of an industry with a strong safety culture” and being motivated by big businesses, which are “safety-critical”, with more waffle about safety leadership and safety performance.

Will someone ever be able to “drain the British swamp” of these conceited executives who disingenuously hide behind the “safety and good old business principle banners”, to further their greed and lust for power at whatever cost.

RETIRED OIM: Bill, now the full horror of your findings during the Expro audit have been made available via Johns’ web site I wonder what kind of reaction, if any, will be generated. In retrospect and with hindsight, publishing earlier might have sealed Brinded’s demise sooner and he would never have risen to an apparent level of “the untouchable”.

The Italians hopefully will ensure he will be disgraced never to be any where near a responsible position again.

Sad to think the MF will be drawing several million £ pounds a year in pension rights as well as the vast number of Shell shares he was allocated as a direct result of his dictatorial years of apparent criminal behaviour. Just one of people who turned Shell from a well respected Company who treated Staff as a precious asset to be nurtured rather than be coerced and then dumped at the first opportunity.

exshellman: After the Shell BG merger completed in 2016 , a lot of really good people lost their jobs , it was handled terribly by the HR dept and the so called 'General Managers' culled some of the best experts they had ...in less than a year of the redundancies Shell were struggling and now with the lack of expertise...they have had to take in contractors to fill staff positions ..within a year of the redundancies ... they could be liable if people took this issue up.. Also Shell were looking at hiring back some old boy network ...who are now pensioners to come back in as managers to help out with the problems ..LOL . they have so much dead wood staff on their books and the company is ran like a club. I'm glad to be away from the farce that Shell became , the malaise started around about 2004 when they began to lose the plot. The BG merger for many was a final nail in the coffin, some of the hand picked people for the new club don't know their arse from their elbows. The only way Shell actually make profits is when the oil price goes high... when Brent is low they can't compete within their quartile or peer groups. I'll keep abreast here on the blog

Contributor to this blog: I’ve just come across an article "Tips & Insights: A World-class Combination" about the proposed combination of Royal Dutch Shell, one of the largest companies in the world and 'best known for its gasoline stations' and BG Group, a natural gas specialist.

The article centres on Sarah Franklin, (BG chief counsel, with a list of responsibilities, including health and safety after her name), who would be BG’s legal lead for integration planning.

In the article she explains that emotional intelligence was pivotal to success. I find this strange, as emotional intelligence wasn’t an attribute in BG Group. Could this be integration jargon?

Franklin has apparently added other governance matters, including human rights and whistleblowing investigations to her legal skill set. She set up BG’s first whistleblowing program.

She has inherited a new team that focuses on complex safety and environmental issues. As noted in the article, in Shell Legal, many lawyers advise on safety and environmental matters but it didn’t have a global core of experts.

If you are a Shell employee, be extremely cautious about the content of the two preceding paragraphs. If you have concerns, especially those with a safety connotation and you wish to engage with her……….beware.

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